Thread · HN Continuity

I had Claude Opus disassemble the CDC 6600 dead start panel. The hard part was finding a better image of the switches so the vision could read the bits.¹

The content isn't very interesting, and Claude's comments aren't very detailed. Not bad for 2 minutes of work about a 62 year old computer though. Look out Ken Shirriff, AI is coming for you.²

  Addr   Octal   Instruction      Meaning
  0001   7512    DCN  12          Disconnect channel 12 (put it in a known idle state)  
  0002   7712    FNC  12, 4000?   Send function code to channel 12&#x27;s device  
  0003   4000?                      └ function code (last bit unclear: 4000 or 4001)  
  0004   7712    FNC  12, 0001    Send another function code
  0005   0001                       └ function code
  0006   7712    FNC  12, 1500?   Send a third function code
  0007   1500?                      └ function code (least certain row)
  0010   2000    LDC  0160?       Load A with a word count
  0011   0160?                      └ the count
  0012   7412    ACN  12          Activate channel 12
  0013   7112    IAM  12, 0015    Read A words from channel 12   into memory starting at 0015
  0014   0015                       └ destination address

1. <a href="https://dyninst.github.io/scalable_tools_workshop/petascale2017/assets/slides/HPC.history.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://dyninst.github.io/scalable_tools_workshop/petascale2...

2. Not really. I have no idea if this disassembly is corrrect.

3. Quora is prison for words.